Kabul - Roads were cordoned off in Kabul this week for the heavily armed convoy of visiting German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung.

To spend as little time as possible on the dangerous streets, the 18 armoured jeeps negotiated them at high speed, leaving behind thick clouds of dust.

The speed was necessary because if the convoy moved too slowly, it could be attacked.

The clearing of the streets for Jung's convoy highlights a trend in Kabul: Ordinary Afghans can no longer move freely about in their own capital. Kabul has been transformed into a fortress.

Blast walls have grown higher and higher and have encroached further into Kabul's streets as the number of checkpoints has increased dramatically.

New York  - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday highly praised US President Barack Obama's commitment to UN programmes, like climate change and ending poverty around the world.

Ban and Obama met earlier this week for the first time since the president was inaugurated in January. Ban said he was encouraged by the talks "both in substance and in spirit."

"That it should come so early is a strong signal of the new administration's commitment to the United Nations and its cause," Ban told reporters at UN headquarters in New York.

Washington - Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, a NATO official and former commander of international forces in Afghanistan, was nominated to be the United States' next ambassador to Afghanistan by President Barack Obama on Wednesday.

Eikenberry is currently deputy chairman of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's military committee. A career military veteran, he served as the commander of the Combined Forces Command in Afghanistan for 18 months before moving to NATO's Brussels headquarters in 2007.

The Hague  - The Hague will host a United Nations conference on the future of Afghanistan at the end of the month, although it was unclear Wednesday whether or not Iran had been invited to attend.

The summit, to be chaired by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, will take place on March 31, on the theme of stabilizing the country.

A spokesman of the Dutch foreign affairs ministry on Wednesday could not confirm yet whether or not Iran had been invited to the summit.

Kabul - A remote-controlled roadside bomb killed seven Afghan security forces Wednesday in eastern Afghanistan, while Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the killing of an Afghan journalist, who was shot dead by unknown assailants in southern region.

Seven Afghan security forces were killed when their vehicle was blown up by a remote-controlled roadside bomb in Lakan area of south- eastern province of Khost on Wednesday morning, General Najeeb Nuhzad, an army commander in the province said.

Kunduz, Afghanistan - German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung said Wednesday the security situation in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz had stabilized after three German soldiers were killed there last year, but he got mixed reviews when meeting with tribal leaders there.

Although just before his visit to the German army's headquarters in Kunduz, three rockets hit outside the camp, inuring no one but damaging a gate, some of the tribal leaders said they had seen security improvements.